1. The Field of the Invention
The present invention generally relates to the distribution of protected content in a rights management system. More particularly, the present invention provides for pre-licensing content subject to rights management in order to allow a principal access to the content when the principal does not have access to a rights management server.
2. Background and Relevant Art
Rights management services (RMS) provide software that protects ownership/copyright of electronic content by restricting what actions an authorized recipient may take in regard to that content. The term content refers to information and data stored in digital format including: pictures, movies, videos, music, programs, multimedia, games, documents, etc. A few of the primary functions of a RMS are to control licensing authorization so that content is unlocked only by authorized intermediate or end-users that have secured a license, and to control content usage according to the conditions of purchase or license or otherwise imposed by the author (e.g., permitted number of copies, number of plays, the time interval or term the license may be valid, or actions that may be performed on the content, such as further distribution, opening or accessing, printing, and the like). Another function of a RMS may be to identify the origin of unauthorized copies of content to further combat piracy.
Originally, the idea of rights management was used to protect against the on-line piracy of commercially marketed material such as digital periodicals, books, photographs, educational material, video, music, etc. The use of rights management, however, has become increasingly popular in the business setting to protect proprietary or confidential information within a business network. For example, a CEO of a large corporation may wish to distribute an email that includes trade-secrets. Because of the confidential nature of this information, however, the CEO may wish to limit the actions recipients may take in regard to this content. For example, the CEO may wish to allow upper-level management to read, copy, print and save the confidential information; however, she may wish to limit other employees to read-only access or to no access at all. Accordingly, through the use of RMS the CEO can specify who is authorized to view the protected content and what actions they may take in regards thereto.
The above illustrates just one of many examples of the importance of controlling content in a business network environment. Although rights management is becoming a popular tool in a business environment, there currently exist several drawbacks and deficiencies in the system. For example, typically the recipient of the protected content is required to obtain a use license from a RMS server in order to open and use the protected content. If, however, a user is on remote location or does not otherwise have access to a RMS server the user may not be able to obtain a license. Such an instance could arise when an employee downloads a protected email onto their laptop, and later opens the item when not connected to the network, e.g., when traveling. Alternatively, corporate policy may be established to protect the sensitive keys within the RMS server from those outside the network. Accordingly, the corporation may not allow access to the RMS server to employees on remote location. As such, a remote user that previously downloaded protected content before going on remote location or otherwise receives protected content through, e.g., a message server, may not be able to access the content because they cannot get authorization from the RMS server.
Another drawback of the current rights management services is the limited control over balancing the load on a RMS server. Accordingly, the RMS may fail because of an overload of requests for use licenses. For example, if a large corporation sent protected content to all of its employees and all of the employees attempt to obtain a use license at about the same time there is a potential that the RMS server may become overwhelmed and fail.
Accordingly, there exists a need for methods, systems and computer program products that provide for allowing a user access to protected content when the user does not have access to a RMS server. Furthermore, there exists a need for throttling the load on the RMS server to produce batch requests at a pace the RMS server can handle.